Welcome to Hyperion Records, an independent British classical label devoted to presenting high-quality recordings of music of all styles and from all periods from the twelfth century to the twenty-first.

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Recordings

Sinfonia in B is Joseph Swensen’s orchestration of the little-known original version of Brahms’ B major piano trio. The original Opus 8 is intriguing for many reasons. Not only is it a work of extraordinary quality and emotional depth, written by ...» More

CDS44331/4212CDs Boxed set (at a special price) — Last few CD copies remaining

'The pick of this crop has to be Brahms's Complete Chamber Music from Hyperion. Spanning more than two decades, this box contains the finest, mainly B ...'Immerse yourself in this set of 12 CDs of Brahms's chamber music … in the last 25 years, Hyperion has managed to persuade some of the finest of ...» More

Track 11 on CDS44331/42
CD11 [5'17]
12CDs Boxed set (at a special price) — Last few CD copies remaining

On 30 September 1853 Brahms called at the Schumanns’ home in Düsseldorf, bearing a letter of introduction from Joachim. The following month, Joachim himself paid a surprise visit, and Schumann proposed that a composite ‘greetings sonata’ for violin and piano should be composed in his honour. Schumann himself wrote the slow movement and finale, his pupil Albert Dietrich the opening movement, and Brahms the scherzo. Schumann eventually complemented his contribution with two further movements, to form a sonata of his own, but Brahms’s Scherzo in C minor is the only portion of the original work that has remained in the active repertoire. In later life, Brahms became only too aware of the shadow of Beethoven. At this stage, however, he felt no such inhibitions: boldly, he set his scherzo in Beethoven’s favourite dramatic key of C minor, and he even went so far as to base it on the ‘fate’ rhythm from the Fifth Symphony. The trio section, in the major, is a sweeping, passionate melody for the violin which makes a triumphant return in the coda, rounding the piece off in majestic style.